Snippets

It was cold, raining, possibly not the best weather to haul a backpack containing two cameras, four lenses, and somehow not a single cleaning cloth across downtown Fort Worth while wearing boots with slicker soles than I’d realized, but the satisfaction of lining up the perfect shot in the mist made it worth it.

A better night to be out for three hours, walking with two cameras and a monopod - mostly clear, the wind cool but not biting, and my only goal involved two rolls of film to shoot off and worry about developing later.

Urban exploration is something I’ve always been fascinated by, and I did not expect to find the night sky in the middle of the day.

We’ll say the fact that the reflections were in focus and the sign was not was a deliberate choice, and not the artifact of having my lens all the way open and forgetting what that does to focal length.

I’ve tried texture photography many times before, and finding the right combination of something for the image to hang on without stepping too far back from the detail has been a struggle - I might finally be happy with this one. This is also probably the happiest I’ve been with Portra 400 as a film stock, too, which gives me hope that I know how to shoot the last roll in my fridge.

The combination of disco ball and multi-colored LED lights is like catnip to a photographer - I have reminded myself of my budget and relative level of exhaustion to keep myself from going back out to this house and trying to really capture the play of the light. This one is fun, though.

Perhaps this is Moria, had there been spray paint in Middle-earth? Perhaps not. Perhaps this particular form of expression, of art, is something that can only be born of our stubborn need to put our stamp on things, present company not excluded.

“Grain is good!” I screech, partially at myself, as I simply title this one “Books.” (This is also one of the few examples of that trademark Cinestill halation.)

A warm pool of light on a dark night, a street corner - I’m just glad I had the right kind of film in to capture this in this way, rather than pulling it green or washing it out.

It’s interesting, how different of a feel this image has from my digital images of this same location. Those are so much more precise, with a larger focus area and the ability to discern the sky. On film, the ladder truly is reaching up into the light, with no way to know what might be beyond - only what surrounds.